The Changing Hospital Industry: Comparing Not-for-Profit and For-Profit Institutions

by David M. Cutler

Overview

In recent years, the hospital industry has been undergoing massive change and reorganization with technological innovations and the spread of managed care. As a result, the total number of hospitals countrywide has been declining, and a growing number of not-for-profit hospitals have converted to for-profit status. These changes raise two fundamental questions: What determines a hospital's choice of for-profit or not-for-profit organizational form? And how does that form affect patients and society?

This timely volume provides a factual basis for discussing for-profit versus not-for-profit ownership of hospitals and gives a first look at the evidence about new and important issues in the hospital industry. The Changing Hospital Industry: Comparing Not-for-Profit and For-Profit Institutions will have significant implications for public-policy reforms in this vital industry and will be of great interest to scholars in the fields of health economics, public finance, hospital organization, and management; and to health services researchers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226132198
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	02/15/2000
Series:	National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report
Edition description:	1
Pages:	378
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David M. Cutler is a professor of economics at Harvard University, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the editor of Medical Care Output and Productivity, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
I. Hospital Conversions to For-Profit Form
1. Hospital Conversions: Is the Purchase Price Too Low?
2. Converting Hospitals from Not-for-Profit to For-Profit Status: Why and What Effects?
II. Medical Care Quality in For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Organizations
3. Comparing Hospital Quality at For-Profit and Not-for-Profit Hospitals
4. The Adoption and Impact of Advanced Emergency Response Services
5. How Much Is Enough? Efficiency and Medicare Spending in the Last Six Months of Life
6. Market Forces, Diversification of Activity, and the Mission of Not-for-Profit Hospitals
III. Managed Care and Hospital Quality
7. Managed Care and Provider Volume
8. Implications of Managed Care for Teaching Hospitals: Comparisons of Traditional and Managed Care Medical Services within a Single Institution
IV. Taxation and Information
9. The Tax Benefits of Not-for-Profit Hospitals
10. Asymmetric Information and the Not-for-Profit Sector: Does Its Output Sell at a Premium?
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index